Chapter 1
#Chapter 1 Crown Prince Alondre (Alondre) - The Better You Work, the More Work Piles Up
Izeurn Empire's capital, Calastia.
In this historic land, whose name means 'shining city,' there were many beautiful yet majestic sights worthy of the name.
The Golden Cloud Palace, where the empire's crown prince resided, was one of them; although it was the crown prince's residence rather than the emperor's, its scale was enough to overwhelm the royal palaces of other nations.
The golden roof from which Golden Cloud Palace got its name.
Inside the towering walls were vast gardens and ponds rivaling even a fair-sized forest, and the buildings were divided into a main residence and several annexes rather than a single structure. In addition, one hundred imperial guard knights armed with the latest magical armor and more than five hundred support staff—secretaries, gardeners, cooks, maids, and the like—were stationed within the palace at all times.
For that amount of manpower to be prepared just to serve a single human being felt, at a glance, almost absurdly excessive.
Yet among the servants and retainers working in Golden Cloud Palace, not a single person regarded it as excessive or wasteful.
Rather, they did not hesitate to say that even this was not enough.
Alondre Arkandel Izeurn.
For the crown prince, born with the greatest talent and character in the history of the Izeurn imperial family, it was only natural to invest even more budget and manpower.
As for how the crown prince himself reacted when he heard this story—
“That’s insane. You want me to work even more here?”
Honestly.
Seriously.
From the depths of his heart, the crown prince shuddered, rejecting that sort of thing outright.
That was only natural.
More subordinates? A bigger budget?
Then aren't those all just more work in the end?
Those who pursued power and prestige might have enjoyed managing the talented people and budgets that landed in their hands and using them to expand their influence, but the crown prince was not one of them.
“When everyone around me kept praising me and egging me on, I never should have gone along with it...!”
Alondre was a reincarnator.
Not the kind who only recovered the memories of a previous life after falling ill at around age ten or taking a blow to the head, but the kind who retained those memories intact from the moment he was born.
Being fully conscious in a child's body was quite a trial, but at the same time the advantages were clear.
At any rate, he had a much clearer will than others and could devote himself to his goals from an early age without wasting time.
Once he realized that the place he had been reincarnated into was a fantasy world—though 'medieval' wasn't quite the right word, since civilization there had developed in a rather bizarrely warped way—and that he was, moreover, the crown prince of one of the strongest empires of the age, he secretly cheered.
In his previous life, he had been the sort of person with quite a bit of romanticism about fantasy, and in a world where a class system openly existed, being a crown prince was the sort of status that went beyond a silver spoon and straight to platinum-spoon territory.
Having finally been given the best possible background, it would have been far too wasteful to let it rot away.
So, in order not to be called a pearl on a pig's neck, Alondre spared no effort.
He followed the lessons of the dedicated tutors assigned to teach him as diligently as possible, and using the memories of his previous life, he also tried all sorts of experimental things.
Looking back on it, that was the problem.
“Your Highness Alondre! To awaken aura this early, truly astonishing talent! This time, let us learn how to infuse your will into the sword!”
“Your Highness Alondre! Such outstanding academic achievement—I am honored as your teacher! Next, I shall lecture you on ancient literature and heraldry!”
“Your Highness Alondre! The four-field crop rotation method you proposed last time produced tremendous results! To be able to increase food production like this without using a single magic or blessing—it is a feat worthy of the history books!”
“Your Highness Alondre! Do this too, do that too—anyway, do everything!!”
If there was one thing that his past-life military service and his present position as crown prince had in common, it was that the more work you did, the more work kept piling up.
Just as showing off as an ace in the military would get you buried under a mountain of tasks until you worked yourself to death, the ministers who saw a diligent, talented crown prince did not say, “That is enough!” but instead burned with enthusiasm, saying, “No! You've even managed that? Wonderful! Then we'll prepare even more work!”
By then, Alondre realized something had gone badly wrong and tried to quietly back away, but the emperor dealt him the final blow.
“The crown prince is overflowing with talent and his conduct is exceedingly exemplary, so this is a great blessing to the empire. However, knowledge is not something one can fully acquire by studying only books at a desk. I intend to have the crown prince handle practical affairs so that his talents may bloom to the fullest, so my ministers, obey and follow him.”
Some of the work that should originally have been handled by the emperor was passed on to Alondre, and the ministers judged this to be the emperor's 'favor.'
That was because, in a large organization, decision-making power is power itself.
The emperor's handing over even part of his duties to the crown prince meant that he was effectively transferring a portion of his own power to him.
Alondre already had the strongest claim among the emperor's children as the legitimate heir, but because of this incident, his position as successor became so unshakable that ordinary events could not so much as scratch it.
Everyone around him offered congratulations, but Alondre himself could not feel happy about it.
The next emperor, power, whatever—in the end it just meant more work!
If they were going to make him do practical work, they should at least let him skip class! And yet they made him learn all of the classes too!
From dawn until he went to sleep at night, it was nothing but work, study, work.
This crap... was fantasy?
What about adventure and challenge?
What about meeting new companions?
What about the journey to crush the great conspiracy that would throw the world into chaos?
What good was it to be able to stream aura from a sword if, aside from training time, he never even got the chance to swing it?
If this had still been the time when he was only receiving heir education, there might have still been a chance to escape.
At that point, whether he skipped class or studied poorly was Alondre's own problem.
But things were different now that he had also been handed actual government work by the emperor.
If he neglected his work or handled it badly, the emperor's anger would be one thing, but before that, if the person with final authority threw a tantrum because he simply didn't want to work, the damage would fall squarely on the people below him.
Even though he had adapted fairly well to his new life, Alondre still couldn't accept the mindset that those beneath a ruler are naturally supposed to devote themselves to him, so he could not bring himself to do it.
But then, was he supposed to live like this forever, doing nothing but work?
A dark night.
Already cutting into his scarce sleep time, Alondre came to the main palace library in search of something to change his mood and ease his gloom.
“Your Highness, at this late hour, what...?”
“I can't sleep, so I thought I'd read quietly. Please keep the noise to a minimum.”
After ordering the patrol knight guarding the palace in the archaic tone he was now completely used to, Alondre looked around the library.
And then he was disappointed.
“…As expected, there isn't even a comfortable adventure tale to read.”
There were plenty of specialized books and cultured works that scholars would have rushed to with their eyes lit, but no matter how hard he searched, he could not find a single book whose sole purpose was to give the reader enjoyment.
He had hoped that the main palace library—rather than the small library in Golden Cloud Palace, his own residence, though objectively even that place was more than large enough—might contain something interesting, but the result was another failure.
After all, this library, said to have been built in the days of the founding emperor, could be used only by the imperial family; among them, how many people would deliberately come all this way just to read?
Books normally need constant care, but here even the parts that should have required human hands were being handled automatically by magic circles, so it was practically a neglected space. According to the records, the last new books to come in were from a hundred years ago.
Just as Alondre was about to sigh that even a brief respite was hard to come by—
“Hm?”
Something strange suddenly snagged on his senses.
A magic circle meant to automatically regulate humidity and dust.
Because he could sense a strangely warped section in the flow of mana.
Alondre moved toward the source of it.
He spent a moment fiddling with the bookshelf that looked perfectly ordinary at first glance.
With a click as something fitted into place, the bookshelf slid smoothly to the side, revealing the door hidden behind it.
Alondre fell silent for a moment.
His reason and his desire clashed in his head.
‘This is way too suspicious. I should back off for now, inform the others, and order an investigation. If something happens to me, the crown prince, the fallout won't be small.’
‘Chicken?’
‘What?’
After confirming that desire had knocked reason out with a single punch, Alondre opened the hidden door.
Unlike the imperial library, which seemed large enough to fit a house, the hidden room wasn't very big.
In the center of the room sat a single red book atop something halfway between an altar and a display stand.
From the book poured a deeply ominous aura, but the circular sigil drawn around the altar repeatedly blocked it, preventing it from crossing beyond.
That said, the sigil itself did not seem to be in perfect condition either; parts of it had been erased and gone blurry, making it look like a sheet of glass on the verge of breaking.
‘A sealing magic circle. The level is extremely high. But since it's been left unattended without maintenance for so long, it's become extremely weak. Was the strange flow of mana on the outside because of that?’
Several keywords surfaced in Alondre's mind and quickly connected into one conclusion.
‘The founding emperor's library. A hidden room. A sealed book. ...They originally prepared this place to seal something away, but as time passed the person in charge either disappeared or couldn't pass the work on, and the relevant know-how was lost? So it was left abandoned?’
Dangerous.
But interesting.
If it had been the past, maybe not, but to Alondre, who had lately been worn down by an endless barrage of labor and study, the sealed grimoire before him looked far too tempting.
More than anything.
‘Since the seal has weakened, the book's power seems to have dropped quite a bit too. Even if things go wrong, I should still be able to handle it.’
Having made up his mind, Alondre reached out and touched the book.
The instant his fingertip touched it, the book opened on its own, and red mist began pouring out from within.
And soon, that mist transformed into the form of a beautiful woman.
A strangely glossy outfit covered a body with sharply defined, dangerously alluring curves, along with skin as white as snow.
Bat-like membranous wings, red horns, and a long tail.
Glossy black hair and jewel-like red eyes.
A beauty who would make anyone passing by on the street look back at least once spoke to Alondre.
“─Thank you for waking me. Would you please tell me your wish?”